Book Event: The Origins of Cocaine

Published in June by Routledge, The Origins of Cocaine begins its narrative in the 1960s, when the governments of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia started encouraging small farmers to settle their countries’ Amazon lowlands. By the 1980s, these very zones were at the heart of an illicit cocaine boom that continues today. Understanding the origins of the phenomenon is crucial to understanding today’s dilemmas.

The Origins of Cocaine is an unusual collaboration between a historian (Gootenberg) and an evolutionary biologist (Dávalos), both professors at Stony Brook University in New York. Join them for a lively discussion moderated by WOLA’s Adam Isacson, who wrote the book’s epilogue. Copies of the book will be available.